One story leads to the generous embrace of the living world, the other to the banishment. One women is our ancestral gardener, a co-creator of the good green world that would be home to her descendants. The other was an exile, just passing through an alien world to her real home in heaven. And they met- the offspring of skywoman and the children of eve – and the land around us bears the scars of that meeting, the echoes of our story. 

                                                                                                                                            -Braidingsweetgrass 

One day in the summer of 1895, a woman clad in a flaming orange dress slumps heavily on a cushion fast asleep she almost looks like a fever dream. Later the very year she would be confined in a golden frame to be exhibited at the Royal academy of arts at the heart of London. And she would become a pioneer painting of the aestheticism period as she sleeps, her ears flushed by the summer heat and her brunette loose and sprawled, a whimsical picturization of beauty, summer and a rare sight – a woman at rest. and as if a serendipity, she would be named flaming June befitting her bright orange dress, the exact color of the species of brush-footed butterflies called Julia butterfly or the flame that loves orange groves and sunny places. Exactly 202 years later  in December of 1997, Julia butterfly hill a woman with the same name as these little orange-winged charmers would go on to climb a 1,000 year old red wood tree named luna and live there for 738 days in a platform up in its branches some 200 ft from the ground all in the efforts of saving luna and her neighbours - the ancient guardians of the good green, the very pillars of the ecological world – from being cut down by a lumber company.  

Like a butterfly effect, in a rather non-connecting fateful way, its somehow nature and women interlinked like tangled, ancient roots underground. Perhaps its parallels like these, too alike to not notice, paved way for the birth of a prominent dimension of Feminism, The Ecofeminism.  

But as of facts , the term ‘Ecofeminism’ was first introduced in a paper published by Francoise d’Eaubonne in the year 1974 where she argued that the overpopulation of the planet, a concern of the ecologists, was because of the patriarchal dominance that disregarded women to have a decisive authority over their own bodies.  

Ecofeminism is a movement that sees a connection between the exploitation - degradation of the natural world and the subordination & oppression of women. It aims at standing up for both these entities together against one single nemesis, patriarchal systems. 

Ecofeminism emerged out of a series of conferences held among women scholars and revolutionaries in the 1980’s who saw a corelation between feminism and environmentalism. They drew a conclusion that the history of associating women with nature has led to oppression and exploitation of both. In a patriarchal society , women and nature both were labelled under the categories of chaotic, irrational, and in need of control while men were seen as organized, rational, and potential enough to lead the society towards growth, order and prosperity leading to a hierarchal structure of both women and nature being used as  stepping stones towards a higher pedestal of men and a society overlooked by them. 

But then Ecofeminism on its own is bifurcated in two directions. The Radical Ecofeminism and The cultural ecofeminism. 

In simple terms, Radical ecofeminists wanted to severe the circumstances and ways in which women are associated with nature, and liberate women. On the other hand, Cultural ecofeminists were more set on embracing the corelation between these two entities and collectively enhance the status of both. 

When humans still lived in the wilderness, skills like hunting and defence were more valued than feminine part of tasks like caring and child rearing.  And when agriculture came into picture, and humans started to settle down in one place rather than nomading, men started owning land, crops, livestock and more. And those who owned a larger portion naturally became more powerful. Deemed as strong and more capable of protecting their ownings, male children were naturally passed on with the family properties while daughters were married off to someone wealthy. and the society grew to be more androcentric with men owning everything from their crops, livestock to women and their children. And In the 16th century, when the ‘Black death’ killed off up to 60% of the population in Europe, the power system collapsed giving rise to a new age of “capitalism”, basically hunger games. It was suddenly a free market and anyone capable of trade and producing profit was suddenly their own master and everyone wanted profit. In a way we can say that the switch of feudalism to capitalism was beneficial for it discarded a hierarchy and allowed individuals to no more be tied to a land or a master and rather free to earn their living. But, capitalism also meant, everyone wanted a piece of it. And sustainability and balance were soon thrown out of the window. In a way, the society we live in and have lived in throughout the past had been designed to be an Andro-centric ( focused or centred on men ) structure. And Andro-centric had been - for most part of the history – capitalistic, anthropocentric, and utilitarian in nature. 

But perhaps we have reached a level that can be called the manifested version of what german sociologist ulrich beck predicted as “The risk society”. We live in a age of pesticides, genetically modified crops, deforestation, prolifically ignored global warming and a profit-driven production that’s overtaking the speed of nature’s pace of recycle.  

So, where exactly do women stand in the Now? What happened to the revolutionary movement of sisterhood we drew between the green world and women? 

Perhaps in the centre of a false liberation…. 

“THAT GIRL” : Manifesting the main character energy 

If 21st century is anything, its Romanticism. except this is no art or literature movement but conscious living as the protagonist  of one’s life. Romanticising living. It’s a beautiful perspective at life, except when its prolifically performative and materialistic. If perseverance was personified, it would be capitalism. capitalism never fails to find ways to proliferate at times loudly and at times subtle. Like this time, as it rides like a barnacle on the shell of the new found “ manifesting the main character energy “ affinity among young women. A dimension of feminism of women living their lives like a movie character Its all we could see everywhere these days  “ That girl “, the girl who’s got her life together. The girl who has a personality that shows. Everyone wants to be a literal character with an aesthetic, a set of things they are obsessed and associated with like TBR, fashion trends, routines and more. An utopian manifestation of capitalism driving women and their desire for melodrama. But what drives this materialistic agenda benefited from women? 

1.Aestheticism: Aesthetically pleasing has become the basic criteria for majority of contents. but aestheticism - expanding from something as simple as a pleasure of something visually pleasing – has become a sense of identity. Among the diverse aesthetics like dark academia, coquette, cottagecore and more re-invented everyday, the community of internet people that choose to associate their identity with certain aesthetics also actively purchase a line of products associated with that particular aesthetic. eg: coquette community splurge on pink items, ribbons, pastel dresses and more. While this not only makes people make their entire personality based on nothing but an aesthetic, it also creates potential leads – of people wanting to have an aesthetic of their own and in turn driving a materialistic action of acquiring products as per their aesthetic. capitalism driven by a need to have a SHOWABLE personality. 

2.Dopamin saturation: when you could have the world just a scroll away, why not have it re-invent itself everyday. And that’s how we came to have trends. Everyone trying that new something someone started. Be it dance moves, new products, fashion styles, its something new everyone has to try. we like having our attention snatched everyday. It has become normalised to have our dopamine saturated. This also means that we have accelerated our lives. Reusing the same cloths have become boring and we are splurging on fast fashion, may be a little too fast to match the trends that we are not on pace with nature leaving a world filled with piles of cloth dump. From “ trying the viral product everyone’s been talking about “ to “ HUGE shein hauls” its fast lives, exciting rollercoaster rides and capitalism on a Porshe. 

3.Unattainable perfection: we live in a world that’s connected like never before in the history. Access to everyone’s life also means that its more performative than actual reality. And everyone wants to look perfect. This gives rise to digging people’s insecurities to sell products. Although this had been the case for as long as beauty markets and advertisements have been around, it has reached a new level of obsession of trying to fix everything . Like something is naturally flawed in us, and it has to be mended to look perfect. The standards though unlike the early 2k when diverse beauties were celebrated now demands women to look alike. Like dolls on a conveyor belt straight out of production. Big lips, high cheekbones, glass skin and more unnaturally exaggerated body parts in the name of new beauty standards. It’s a pity really, trying to paint a rainbow of diversity in two colors. 

4.Fabulous unnecessaries: ‘Omg this is so cute’, trust me you would hear an influencer say this statement multiple times in a single video over 10 products. and its amazing, afterall women and feminine urges have been more dreamy, fantasy loving than utilitarian needs of masculinity. we are the ones that love flowers, take long hours to choose a beautiful dress, make a little effort in presenting a food, because we love beautiful things, we choose fabulous little things over their practical purposes. And maybe…..it has grown to a point where the balance between ‘pretty’ and ‘useful’  is a bit overly uneven with pretty weighed down and useful in the air. We have grown to buy things simply because they are pretty. And its not just pretty unpractical things, its also fabulous unnecessary things. Videos like “ 15 steps of hand care routine “ “let’s restock my fridge “ are utterly ridiculous. Let’s be real, not one person has this much time or products for handcare and you don’t need stocks of drinks, eateries filled in your refrigerator, neither do you need different shaped ice molds filling your freezers. Especially these restock videos that highlight use of loads of cute plastic contains to have an organized space is deteriorating. In the end its all just an exaggerated version of girlhood play pretend tea parties. Fancy cups of nothing. 

5.Repetitive hypnotism: The subconscious mind feeds on Repetition. The more we hear and see something, we register it strongly in our mind. It also works in another interesting way, making the repetitive things seem attractive and likable. I mean that is the simple concept behind Tv advertisements. The more we see it, the more we happen to recognise it and eventually purchase it. The same thing happens in social media. I like to call it The crowd validation/ or sheep behaviour. Let’s say a bag is actually ugly, but then someone endorses it simply using its one attractive feature-color. Initially we may not give in, but then everyone is talking about it, endorsing it, and suddenly we somehow like it. That’s marketing. Repetitive convincing. That’s what majorly drives sponsored influencers community.